In conclusion I feel that a great deal more thought and attention should be paid to the testimony of the public hearings of the New York Legislative Investigating Committee, under the leadership of Senator George H. Whitney, Chairman of the Committee. A vast amount of valuable data was produced. It showed for the first time to my knowledge an official effort to secure the true story of the narcotic addict in all of its applications and circumstances. It is significant that the Preliminary Report of the Whitney Committee gave official recognition of the fact that narcotic drug addiction is a physical disease. So important and enlightening was the above mentioned report, that it is deemed desirable to quote from it in part as follows: “Lack of understanding and appreciation of the disease of narcotic drug addiction and its treatment by a large majority of the medical profession has fostered conditions which make it impossible to determine a rational procedure for treating and curing the addicted by the State at this time. “Such absence of uniformity of opinion has worked great hardship upon the public and has laid the narcotic drug addict open to misconception, misunderstanding and medical treatment which, in many instances, has resulted in harm rather than good. “Evidence offered by physicians shows that many addicts have died under the methods of treatment existing to-day and that a large percentage of those discharged from institutions as ‘cured’ are driven back to use of narcotics through unbearable physical torture induced by improper withdrawal of their drug. “Evidence from physicians was adduced which denied that any cure for narcotic drug addiction existed in any of the private or public institutions of this State. Evidence from other eminent physicians was adduced which bore testimony to the fact that the disease of narcotic drug addiction was curable. “The difference of medical opinion existing in medical circles regarding this vitally important question should be made the subject of a thorough and searching investigation as a matter of the greatest importance to the welfare of a large number of people in the State of New York. “Your Committee has found that narcotic drug addiction bears no relation in point of character and seriousness to any other known habit induced by the use of stimulants. Narcotic drug addicts, according to evidence adduced, should not be classed with the alcoholic or the tobacco addict or the cocaine habitue. “The constant use of narcotics produces a condition in the human body that many physicians of medical authority now recognize as a definite disease, which diseased condition absolutely requires a continued administration of narcotics to keep the body in normal function unless proper treatment and cure is provided.